Jazz shot him a grateful glance.
“Mornin’, Jessica. Sir.” Louis nodded to Alex as he buzzed them into the hallway to the newsroom.
Jazz hustled on, aware of Alex’s warm, strong hand against her lower back, protective and supportive. Not exactly the impartial touch of a bodyguard. Then again, he wasn’t her bodyguard. He was her lover…and partner in this. Instead of the expected lurch of distaste—especially after all the months she played second string to Elliott Sandusky’s heavy-handed management of their relationship and their work—a wholly different sensation rushed through her veins.
A sensation of attraction that went beyond…attraction. Damn, what an inopportune time for that to happen. She looked up at him, but his expression was focused on their destination—the newsroom and Oliver Jergen.
She steeled herself for battle as they turned the corner into the multistory newsroom. Behind the assignment desk stood a complete stranger.
“Where’s Ollie?” she demanded.
“He’s in your office,” the man said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “Doing an interview with Attila the Hun.”
Max.
Alex swore softly in Spanish.
“Listen to me,” she said, turning to him. “Don’t get into a shouting match over whose job this is. That’s all that Ollie needs to divert attention from him. Take Max outside and beat each other up if you have to, but let me stay with Ollie.”
His eyes darkened. “You won’t be alone with him.”
“I’m fine,” she said, surreptitiously pointing where his borrowed weapon was concealed in an ankle harness. “I’m armed.”
His eyes half closed in disgust. “Don’t shoot him, Jazz.”
“I won’t. At least not until he tells me where my sister is.”
They rounded the assignment desk and looked into Jessica’s glass-enclosed office, where Ollie Jergen sat wide-eyed in Jessica’s chair, facing the human wall of Max Roper.
“Whoa, hold on, honey,” Alex said, clipping a finger into her belt loop and tugging her into his chest. His forceful whisper warmed her ear. “I handle Max. Do not, for any reason in heaven or hell, leave that office with Jergen. Stay right there where everyone can see you.”
The newsroom on Sunday afternoon was virtually deserted, and if Ollie wanted to lunge over the desk and throttle her, the only person who would notice might be the guy on the desk—if he wasn’t facing the police scanners, as he was 99 percent of the time. “Sure.”
He released her and they marched to the office. Alex whipped open the door, and the conversation halted as both men looked at him.
“What the hell are you doing here, Roper?” Alex demanded.
Max scowled, deepening three sharp lines between his thick brows. “I could ask the same thing, Romero. You have no reason or right to be here.” He looked at Jazz, his expression softening only a little. “Nor do you.”
Jazz glanced at Ollie, who simply stared at her, his ashen complexion a perfect complement to his uncombed hair and red-rimmed eyes. Whatever he’d been up to, it didn’t involve sleep.
Alex led her farther into the office. “I just heard from Lucy. We need to talk, Roper. Privately.”
The big man shot Alex another dubious look, his gaze shifting questioningly to Jazz.
“Please, Max,” she urged. “Go with Alex. It’s important. And I want to talk to Ollie.”
Reluctantly, he stood, surprising Jazz again with his height and size. He was six-foot-four inches of solid, ironlike muscle. “I’m done here,” he said gruffly, giving Ollie a threatening glare.
When they left, Jazz slung her shoulder bag on the back of the guest chair and sat, fixing a stare on Ollie. The room was silent except for the hum of Jessica’s computer and the soft purr of an air conditioning duct. He stared right back.
“Where is she?” Jazz demanded.
He said nothing.
“Where is she?” she repeated, her jaw clenched so tightly the words had to slide through her teeth.
He looked down and then back up at her, a contrite expression in weary blue-green eyes. “I’m sorry about last night. I hope you didn’t wait very long.”
So. He’d never showed.
“I left early.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Right after Kimball Parrish paid an unexpected visit.”
He jerked back as though she’d slapped him. “He’s in Key West.”
It took everything she had not to leap over the desk and wring the truth out of his scrawny neck. “He was in Crandon Park at three thirty this morning, and he said you’d sent him there.”
He opened his mouth to argue.
“I don’t give a shit, Ollie,” she said, holding a hand up to silence him. “I want to know where my sister is, and I want to know now.”
His narrow shoulders dipped in resignation. “I have no idea.”
She bit hard against her lip to keep from swearing, to keep from attacking. “I think you know where she is.”
“I told you, Miles Yoder is the only person who knows where she is.”
“Then tell me this.” Could she handle it if her sister was having a relationship with a married man?
He leaned forward, sending a whiff of something sour toward her. Alcohol?
“What is his relationship to Jessica?”
He wet his lips and glanced at the door as though he were about to divulge international secrets. Just say it. Say it!
“He’s interviewing her for a job in New York.”
She felt her air escape in a single puff. “A job? What kind of job?”
“The one she wants. Network anchor, morning show.” He raked her with a look. “I don’t know how much she’s told you.”
There were still too many unanswered questions. “It has to be more than that. Why were you so mad at me the other day, when you thought I was Jessica? What were you talking about?”
“I…I got pissed because I thought you were acting funny. But…” His face broke into a sad smile. “You were just acting. Period.”
Her anger slipped a notch. “What were talking about when you said she would treat you the same? What happened between you and Jessica?”
He shifted in his seat and attempted a casual shrug. “Just a little professional competition.”
“But you have completely different jobs.”
“I want to go to New York, too,” he admitted softly. “She arranged for me to talk to Yoder about a possible job at Metro-Net. But he doesn’t want me up there. Not enough experience.” He let out a long, pained sigh. “And I guess…some of my other problems came to his attention. I thought…”
“You thought what?” she pressed.
“That—that Jessica had…betrayed me. That she didn’t want me in New York and told Yoder about…some issues I have.”
Jazz filed that for later. “Ollie, I haven’t heard a word from her except for two text messages since I got here days ago. Do you have any idea what this story she’s working on is all about? Her relationship to Denise Rutledge?”
His gaze darted around the office. “She’s been tracking this porn story. She thinks it has national potential—”
“What was the angle?”
“She won’t tell me, which was kind of weird. She bounces a lot of stuff off me ’cause we’re pretty good friends.” He rubbed his hands over his unshaved stubble.
“Would Miles Yoder have known she was working on that story? Would anyone?”
“I think I was the only one. Jessica trusted me. Most of the time.” He cracked a knuckle, his lips pressed together. “The station manager and news directors are both pretty much under Parrish’s thumb since the Adroit takeover, and I don’t think Jessica wanted Parrish to know about it.”
“Why not?”
“Because of his religious beliefs.”
“What do they have to do with it?”
“I’m just speculating,” Ollie said, leaning his elbows on the desk, “but I think Jessica figured Parrish wouldn’t run any stories on porn. He’s
really a right-winger, you know.”
That made sense. The man was throwing shock jocks off the air and limiting play lists on his radio stations, living up to the criticisms that he was letting religion impact the media coverage. Once again, not a personality trait that would appeal to Jessica. “Ollie, is my sister dating Kimball Parrish?”
Ollie shrugged. “I don’t know what you’d call it. She’s stringing him along and he’s like a dog to a fire hydrant for her.”
Stringing someone along wasn’t Jessica’s style.
Jazz gave a frustrated sigh. Now what? “So you’ve talked to this Yoder guy. Do you have any idea how I can get to him?”
“He’s as insulated as a thermos.” He laughed bitterly. “I sure as hell don’t know how to get past his gatekeepers.”
She still felt like she was staring at a puzzle full of missing pieces. “Ollie, if you didn’t tell Kimball Parrish about last night, then what was he doing there? And how did he get there? He told me he was going to Cincinnati, then New York.”
Ollie shook his head. “I called from here; maybe he’s got the phones bugged. And he never went to Cincinnati; he’s at his house down on Sunset Key, an island off Key West. He’s a licensed helo pilot, and he took one of my choppers when he left. It has an on board tracking system and I saw the helo was there this morning.”
She could get to Key West today. “Can you get the address for me?”
“Probably; I have a master key to the management suite. He’s got a big oil painting of the place up in his office. I bet we could find the address, too.” He stood and suddenly shot his hand over the desk in an awkward peace offering. “Look, I’m really sorry about last night, Jazz. I was…I was…” His face reddened. “You might as well know, because Jessica’s going to tell you.”
She waited for the explanation, not knowing how to put him out of his obvious shame.
“I was drunk. I get drunk sometimes and Jessica knows it. I can get ugly, and mean. Like I was last night. Or I get…” He stumbled for a word, then his eyes filled. “She’s trying to get me help.”
“Yeah, she would do that,” Jazz said.
For the first time, his smile was from the heart. “I’m in love with her.”
Poor guy. She reached out and took his hand. “She has that effect on people.”
His story seemed solid. She knew the call had come from this number, and maybe Parrish did have the phones bugged. Jessica had been adamant about not talking personal business from work. Maybe Parrish overheard their conversation last night and grabbed the helicopter to stop a rendezvous?
It was possible; Parrish was in love with Jessica, too.
Then realization slapped her. If Kimball Parrish overheard them then he knew she wasn’t Jessica, and she distinctly remembered him calling her “Jessica” from his car last night.
Was Ollie lying?
Ollie stepped around the desk, and snapped his head toward the newsroom. “Come on. Let’s get that address.”
With the weight of her borrowed nine-millimeter pistol pressing on her leg as reassurance, she followed him upstairs and into a darkened reception area. An empty secretary’s desk sat sentry in the middle of a cluster of offices, along with some chairs and coffee tables. All the doors were closed and the blinds drawn.
She glanced at the stairwell behind her. Would Alex know where she was?
He’d told her not to leave with Ollie, but now she knew he was just a remorseful drunk with a crush on Jessica. Or was he?
He fumbled with keys in one of the doors before it unlocked. When he turned to invite her in, his face looked less contrite and friendly than it had downstairs. But that could have been the shadows. “God, you look so much like her,” he mumbled softly.
Trepidation slowed her step. “That’s what they say.”
“You must have gotten mistaken for Jessie your whole life.”
“No, not really.” Jessie. Any good friend of Jessica’s would know better than to call her that. “We’re very different.”
He nodded slowly, the hazel eyes taking a lazy trip over her body. “Well, you dress differently, that’s for sure.”
Where was Alex?
Wordlessly, Ollie entered the office and flipped on a light. “Here’s the painting of his house,” he said. “Even if we can’t find the address, it’s not a big island. There’s just one small access road and you can grab a golf cart to find this house.”
She stayed in the hallway, uneasiness tickling the hairs on the back of her neck.
“Come on in, Jazz,” he called. “I can’t very well take the picture off the wall.”
She reached down and pulled the Glock out of her ankle holster, stuffing it in her pocket. Taking a deep breath, she stepped toward the door of the office.
Ollie was staring up at the picture of a pink beach house, and Jazz’s gaze followed. A thousand goose-bumps flowered over her arms. That house. It was familiar and menacing, and just looking at it suddenly overwhelmed her with…helplessness. Something about that house was bad.
Closing her fingers over the cold metal of Alex’s gun, she stepped into the office.
Max Roper was no hypocrite. Alex appreciated that as they separated in the hallway without shaking hands. They didn’t like each other and never would; why fake it?
But they’d reached an understanding. Alex promised to let Jazz finish her interrogation of Ollie—who Max pronounced hungover on booze and hung up on Jessica Adams—and then Alex would do nothing more without a conversation with Lucy.
That’s what Alex wanted anyway, and it appeased Max. Who would no doubt call Lucy the minute he was out of earshot, and report that Alex and Jazz were not following orders and remained on the case.
He watched Max stalk down the hall toward the lobby. Sure enough, he pulled out a cell phone before he even left the building. Pivoting away, Alex headed back to Jazz. As he turned the corner, all he could see was that empty office and Jazz’s handbag hanging on the back of the guest chair.
White-hot fury and frustration ignited his blood. Why wouldn’t that woman listen to him? Why wouldn’t she just do what he said, stay under his wing, and—
Forget it. Trying to guard Jazz was like trying to harness the wind.
“Where did she go?” he bellowed to the near-empty newsroom.
The man at the assignment desk covered his mouthpiece and glared at Alex. “No clue, dude.”
Alex spun around and scanned the two-story newsroom. The sea of computers in the middle was mostly black, the desks empty. Only one man sat across the room, on the phone. A floor manager pushed a camera across the floor of a darkened studio set. A few technicians worked behind glass in a control room near the studio, also oblivious.
All along the top floor, more glass-enclosed offices—all empty—could be seen from where he stood. On a Sunday afternoon with no newscast scheduled for hours, the place was deserted.
“They couldn’t have left,” he barked to the man behind the assignment desk, who just shrugged and continued a muffled conversation into a headset.
Mierda!
He peered into the hallway that ran parallel to the newsroom. The makeup studio, the control rooms, even the offices down there were all darkened. If they’d gone the other way they would have passed him, and he knew there was no other exit in the secure building. His gaze traveled to the stairs. Could they have gone upstairs?
Alex scaled the carpeted steps two at a time, his hand on his gun, his thoughts whirring. He’d left her for five minutes. Five minutes while he placated his archenemy to save her ass—and that of her sister—and buy them time and wham! She’s gone. Anger and exasperation and an emotion he couldn’t identify boiled in him.
Was that fear?
He stepped into a suite of offices, hearing only his thudding heart. What if something happened to her? What if that nutcase Jergen hurt her, touched her, took her?
A soft light spilled from one partially opened door. Alex resisted the urge to call out her nam
e, willing his blood to slow so he could hear over the deafening rush of his pulse.
He heard the familiar clatter of computer keys, then an even more familiar laugh. Walking slowly toward the office, gun drawn, he listened.
“Jesus, you’re good,” a man said.
What the hell? He shoved the door open with his gun.
Ollie and Jazz both jerked around from the monitor, where they’d been head to head, clicking away at one of her goddamn endless databases. “Oh my God, you scared me,” she exclaimed.
He scared her? “What are you doing?”
She pointed to an oil painting of a beach house at sunset on the wall. “Finding that house. It’s on Sunset Key, about twelve minutes from Key West. That’s where Kimball Parrish is.”
Ollie straightened, his bleary gaze dropping to the gun, as he indicated Jazz with a tilt of his head. “She’s quite the hacker.”
Adrenaline gushed through Alex, leaving him pissed off and poised to slam his fist into a wall. Or Ollie’s face. “Yeah, I know.” He made no effort to reholster the gun that held Ollie’s attention. Let the skinny twerp worry.
Jazz had returned to the keyboard, leaving Alex to stare at the back of her head.
“I told you not to leave that office,” he ground out.
Jazz lifted one hand, typing with the other. “Sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” He practically spat the word at her. She defied his order, disappeared with a creep wearing a stained “Zoo York” T-shirt and scared the living hell out of him, and she was sorry?
“Yes!” she said with a definitive smack of the enter key. “I found it! Of course, the whole island’s only twenty-seven acres, so it wasn’t that hard.”
She spun around in the desk chair and smiled at Alex. “How’d you unload Max?”
He didn’t answer, still swamped by his physical reaction to losing her.
Utterly oblivious, she pulled a piece of paper off the printer, and then turned to the painting of a pink Key West–style beach house.
“I can find that house,” she announced. “There’s only one road on Sunset Key.”
Alex managed a remarkably composed voice as he told Jergen, “I need to talk to her privately.”
Kill Me Twice Page 19
